I am hopeless as a handyman. I know how to start the
snowblower and the lawnmower and that is about it. Someone once showed me
which end of a hammer to hold, but I have long since forgotten. If
something - God forbid - ever happens to my wife, I won't even know how to turn
the heat up or down in the house (I actually have no clue where the thermostat
is in the house - and that is not an exaggeration!)
So needless to say, when the garage door broke this week my wife
called a repairman to fix it. Asking me to try to fix it would have been
a useless step in the process. Anyhow the repairman came this
morning. He came at the appointed time, looked at the door knowingly,
tried to explain to me what was wrong (he was a Newfoundlander, so even if I
did know handyman terms, I still would have only understood every third word at
best), and said he would get it fixed. I nodded at appropriate intervals
in agreement - as if I understood what the issues were. Thirty minutes
later the garage door was fixed and working like new with, in addition, a lot
of new replacement parts in preventive maintenance.
As soon as the repairman started talking I had a strong sense that
he was going to get the job done and get it done right. He had an air of
competence that I completely trusted. I had no doubt in my mind that my
garage door was going to work fine for the next five years at least.
Given that situation, it got me to wondering - what are the
characteristics that would give us the same level of confidence in the competence
of a risk manager? How can we know just by the language and the stance of
a risk manager that they will get the right job done right? Is it more
important to have confidence in the competence of my garage door repairman or
my risk manager?
Meanwhile I am a happy camper as I no longer
will have to run out and manually open and close the garage door for my
wife. Life is good with competence.
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